Great roundup. Please add to it. I plan on being up in the Mid-Coast in a few weeks.
This is a long ramble through my brain…
I lived in Owls Head right on water at the head of Penobscot Bay, just off the road about 2/3 of the way from Primo’s to Breakwater Winery for several years around 2006-2008. The winery had just started planting their vines just before I moved away. I was a food/beverage business consultant and food writer and worked with dozens of small food businesses, farms, wineries, and distilleries in the Mid-Coast and Down East. I was the force behind starting the Maine Winery Guild. I was writing an article about wineries in Maine for a magazine and while folks thought there were around a half dozen wineries in the state, there were actually 18, and more in construction. I put together an email list and sent the info around to all of them, and in less than a month we started the first meetings to form the guild. I also put together a Maine Wine Trail guide for the Maine Tourism Board and thousands of the brochures were at all the tourist centers on the highways. The guide actually had three wine trails. Southern Maine, Mid-Coastal Maine, and Down East Maine. I also taught a few seminars on the food/beverage industry at the Mid-Coast School of Technology in Rockland. Then I partnered up with Winterport Winery and moved to Winterport for a few years and helped them open Penobscot Bay Brewery as well, before moving to NY to open a farm distillery.
It was great hearing about some of my old haunts, and about new places. I have to check out all these new places, I haven’t been up to that area for 2-3 years.
Last time I was in Rockland I went to a bar called 3 Crow that had a very large whiskey selection and cocktails that were pretty good for Maine, but the food was mediocre. But I heard it closed.
My two favorite places in Rockland were In Good Company and Suzuki Sushi.
In Good Company is a small wine bar and restaurant. The owner/chef, Melody, is fabulous. She trained at the CIA and was in the same graduating class at the owner of Primo’s. Melody won the prestigious Frances Roth Leadership Award at the CIA.
Suzuki Sushi is top quality traditional sushi, using local fish and seafood. Keiko Suzuki buys off the local fishing boats, and harvests seaweed and forages for greens locally.
I ended up becoming good friends with both their owner/chefs. I originally was up in the Mid-Coast area because I was going to buy the fabulous Kohn’s Smoke House in Thomaston when the Kohn’s retired, but decided to go in a different direction. I remember going there for the first time the summer before my senior year of high school, when we were on summer vacation at our camp in Union, when the Kohn’s first opened their smoke house making German style smoked meats, poultry, and seafood. I was then offered a job as a chef to work with Melody of In Good Company, but the kitchen was just too small for me. I’m 6’2" and 225 lbs. and that kitchen is the smallest restaurant kitchen I have ever seen. I also led several sake and shochu trainings for the staff at Suzuki Sushi back then.
Francine’s Bistro in Camden was another favorite of mine. Their steak frites was excellent. Just a great cut of meat, prepared perfectly, and delicious frites. Also the soups, especially the seafood based ones, were out of this world. The type of dish where you kind of hunch over concentrating on it and unconsciously making little purring/growling noises as you eat.
Down East there are two smoke houses I can highly recommend. On Rt. 1 in Hancock is Sullivan Harbor Farm, just a short drive East of the turn off for Acadia/Bar Harbor. I think that they make some of, if not the best smoked salmon in the world. I did an article for a magazine on all the coastal smoke houses in Maine, at the time seven were doing seafood, (and a handful doing smoked meats and charcuterie in the interior that were going to be another article, but I never got around to it.) So I spent a month driving hundreds of miles from Portland in the south, to Perry all the way Down East, just north of Lubec. The other is Grindstone Neck of Maine a bit further Down East in Winter Harbor on the next peninsula east of Acadia/Bar Harbor. The owner Carl, and his son, are artists when it comes to smoking. The also own a nice restaurant in Winter Harbor, The Fishermans Inn; and Sunset House BnB in West Gouldsboro. Carl makes great salmon and other fish and smoked items, but the lightly smoked local crab claws packed in butter are mind altering. You just take the vacuum package and throw it into hot water long enough to melt the butter, and serve. Saveur magazine once included them in their 50 best foods. Once I got Carl to make me cold smoked uni. He sourced local diver caught uni, had them sexed into male and female, and lightly smoked them. It firmed them up just a bit, and they were amazing. You could tell the difference between the male and female uni by a slight variance in taste and texture. I like Maine uni because I find them to be smaller and sweeter than Pacific uni. I gave a few packages to Suzuki sushi for them to inlude in their chefs special. The rest I took down to NYC with me and gave to several top restaurants and chefs who tried them and prepared various dishes with it. Chefs Chris Cosentino and Aaron Sanchez snacked on them while preparing a big nose to tail dining event I attended.
I agree with you about almost all your picks. The exception for me is Miranda Cafe. I was friendly with the owner and some of the staff, but I never had a single meal that I enjoyed there. After around a half dozen visits I just gave up. It was just too eclectic for me. The combinations seemed forced, striving to be unusual just to be unusual. And just not well executed, especially the Asian takes on dishes. I know many folks love it, but others like myself don’t. I think it is a very polarizing place.
Primo’s, from day one, has been inconsistent. When the kitchen is on their game, they are top notch and can be transcendent. When they are off, they are anywhere from mediocre to abysmal. It’s weird because sometimes they are great all season, some times off and on, and sometimes bad all season. Staff and service very inconsistent as well. The times that they are great kept me going there several times a season for several years, but one bad season permanently put me off. The prices are too high, expecially for the area.
I met Sam of the former Salt Water Farm Cafe a few times. I really liked his food. Very well executed. I’m glad he has his own place.
Other favorites of mine you list are the Owls Head General Store for that sloppy, delicious, mess of a 7 Napkin Burger. Morse’s Sauerkraut for their great selection of European and local items like cheese, and their sauerkraut and pickles, as well as their German, stick to your ribs, home style meals, especially in the depths of winter. It was Morse’s that made me start making my own sauerkraut from scratch, which I now do every fall/winter.Beth’s Farm where I visited several times a week for fresh picked produce. I would get a bushel or two of super ripe Roma type tomatoes each summer and roast them and jar them to use in sauces all the next year. Rockland Farmers market was a favorite. I would hop on my bicycle for the 1/2 mile ride into town and fill up my paniers to over flowing. I had a deal with one woman who sold rabbits to buy all her unsold at the end of the day for half price. usually 3-4 each week. Rock City Roasters made me addicted to coffee while I lived there, but I mostly gave it up when I moved up to Winterport because there were no good roasters in the area or in Bangor up the road. I stopped by Jess’s Fish Market at least once a week when I first moved there, an excellent seafood shop with a great selection of craft beer and deli items. The only store I ever saw selling the great Benton’s bacon from Tennessee as a regular item.
